Comments
The Prints and Photograph Division of the Library of Congress has two slightly different negatives of this scene by Timothy H. O'Sullivan, the Civl War photographer. Sullivan visited Smith's plantation in 1862 and made several photographs of its enslaved population. In general he left no records of his experiences and photographs, and the only identifiers are to be found on the notes or captions he scribbled on his negatives; in this particular case, on the negative sleeve O'Sullivan wrote "group on J.J. Smith's Plantation, Beaufort, S.C." For details on O'Sullivan and his photographs, see James Horan, Timothy O'Sullivan: America's Forgotten Photographer (New York, 1966) and Joel Snyder, American Frontiers: The Photographs of Timothy H. O'Sullivan (New York, 1981). See also image NW0243 on this website.